Power charging stations for mobile outdoor service robots, such as robotic lawnmowers, are well known in the art. If a robot vehicle uses an electric battery as a source of power, the robot can be directed to the station whenever it is necessary to charge or recharge the battery. However, charging arrangements of this type, when used outdoors, can have significant drawbacks or deficiencies.
As an example, in currently available systems, both the robot vehicle and the charging station have corresponding or complementary conductors or conductive elements. The conductive elements must be mated together, in order to transfer electric power from the station to the robot vehicle. However, these conductive elements are typically exposed to weather conditions and moisture, and over time may become oxidized and mechanically fatigued. Mud and debris can also collect on the conductive elements. As a result, the capability to transfer power to the robot, using these conductive elements, becomes degraded or diminished, and the overall system durability, compromised.
Another problem with presently used outdoor charging systems is that an exterior or outdoor electric outlet will generally be required as a power source, but may not be conveniently available. For example, it may be desired to use a robotic lawnmower of the above type to mow a lawn which is adjacent to a house or other building that has no exterior outlet. Alternatively, the only exterior outlets could be on a side of the building that is opposite to the lawn that is to be mowed. In either case, it would be necessary to install an exterior outlet, which could be expensive and also destructive to the building.
In addition, outdoor charging systems of the above type generally have only a single charging station. This can result in excessive wear of grass or other yard elements that are adjacent to the station, since the robotic mower must frequently go to and maneuver around this location. It might be possible to alleviate this problem by providing multiple charging stations at different locations. However, it would then be necessary to provide an exterior outlet at each of the multiple locations, which could further aggravate the problem discussed above in regard to the availability of such outlets, as well as increasing overall system cost.